Hunger and Thirst
by Michelle My Belle
Summary: What really happened in Red's shipping container safe house.
_A/N: Prompt from emilievitnux: So, Food!Porn!Prompt: Red is Hades, Liz is Persephone. Unlike what the story says, she never ate the pomegranate, but licked its juice from Hades's (Red's) chest when he ate one in front of her. (I'm not up on Greek Mythology enough to pull the original prompt off to the letter, but hopefully this won't disappoint. Disclaimed.)_

It always happened at night. The aching. The needing.

The countless nights she went to bed thinking about him. His strong prominent shoulders, the way his fine suiting just dripped off of him like he was born to wear suits, the tight curve of his ass. She often wondered about his tailor's view while getting up close and personal as he trimmed, nipped and tucked at Raymond's pants until he achieved a most perfect fit. He had a swagger like nothing she'd seen on any man and late at night as she wrestled with her thoughts in her dank and dark motel room, she assured herself that a man walks like that and talks like that when he likely _is_ all that. Soon, her thoughts about him overflowed the cup of secretive nighttime loneliness into the waking day. Keeping the existence of those thoughts close to the vest could prove dangerous while working so closely with the man.

Keeping her jealousy in check was another problem. Sure, Madeline Pratt had history with Red and that she'd choked on over time in her effort to swallow it; but it was so much more than that. Samar, Alison in ID Services at the Post Office and that leggy blonde barista from the cafe where Red often suggested they meet - all were on the receiving end of way more attention from Red then she cared for.

And now he'd stolen her away in an unmarked van, hidden her in the heart of the freighter. It seemed, for the moment, she was the only woman on earth. The only other person on earth, really. It was clear, at least from the events of the last twenty-four hours, that she was worth risking his legitimacy and even his life, but he'd done so time and again and the missing ingredient had been her own willingness to see it, to accept it.

It'd been over a year since she'd been with a man, and, having been married to an egotistical, lying prick for five years prior to that had left her a wantonly unsatisfied woman. Keeping her subconscious tells in check was a work in progress and besides the way her eyes followed his lips of their own accord, she was fairly certain he knew not of the growing affection for him that gnawed at her insides. Lizzie sat in the corner of the sofa that night on the boat listening to him tell story after story. She pushed her food around her plate and observed as Red had no trouble with his. He wasn't surprised when she flatly declined the pecan pie; being on the run was new to her and was surely taking its toll on her constitution. She'd go to bed having eaten next to nothing that entire day. Elizabeth Keen was no stranger to hunger.

Red stood before his collection of fine decanters in all their radiance with their various diamond and wedge-cut crystal stoppers. He carefully selected one before pouring two generous glasses and offering one to Lizzie. It wasn't her brightest idea, drinking something so strong with a half-empty stomach, but after this day, it was more than called for. Earned, even. She thought back to her first week at the FBI academy and what she would have given for a cold glass of water. Endurance training in Virginia in the middle of July was anything but ideal, but she wanted it so badly she could taste it. When his back was turned, when he wasn't aware, she looked on him with that same longing, like a stream in the desert. Elizabeth Keen was no stranger to thirst.

It was cool out on the open sea, so she didn't miss the warmth of his hand seeping through her sheer blouse as it settled into the small of her back. Like a gentleman, he showed her to her room that night and though he lingered at her door's threshold, he dare not cross it. She pressed her shoulder into the frame, looking up at him, watching him hesitate and think through what he might say next, what he might do.

"I hope the room is to your liking," he offered with a small sad smile. For someone who wanted to give Lizzie the world, offering her a tiny room in a steel reinforced shipping container made his stomach pang with the guilt and grief over just how they got to this place.

"It's nice. Not like I'll be doing much sleeping, though," she admitted coyly, fluttering her eyelashes and staring at the ground.

The pang flamed into a burning desire to grab her and meld their bodies together, if she'd ever allow it. He settled for a firm grip of her shoulder, gently massaging his fingers into her flesh until the shiver that ran through her from his touch forced her eyes up to meet his.

"Well. If you have any trouble, you know where to find me," he said, his lips pressing into a thin line, then a smile. Dropping his hand, he turned then and crossed the hall to his own quarters and looked back once more over his shoulder before closing his door.

She tossed about in her bed that night, even given the well-appointed linens and sumptuous feel of the soft mattress beneath her weary frame. With no phone, no clock and no window, she figured it to be around two in the morning and that Red was sound asleep and since she most definitely was not, she'd have a snack. She remembered seeing his signature bowl of pomegranates on the kitchen counter when Red gave her the tour upon their arrival. She wondered just why a bowl of the fruit was placed in every safe house she'd ever been in. There were plenty of mysteries to Reddington, surely this was just another.

As she neared the kitchen, she noticed a tiny blue glow from a night light and upon entering, found Red standing in boxer shorts and a stark-white undershirt with his back to her. Hearing her, he startled and turned quickly, a knife in one hand a block of dark chocolate in the other.

"Lizzie? You scared me," he breathed, panting. His eyes followed hers as they trailed down his undershirt with his visibly sculpted chest beneath to the slightly agape flap in his baby blue pinstriped boxers. Even in the dimly-lit kitchen, he saw the small smirk that played across her lips. Then she started to advance toward him.

"Scared you? I'm the only other person here. Were you…doing something you shouldn't be? Maybe sneaking a little something for a sweet tooth?"

He stammered, the intensity of her gaze contrasted with the levity of her question throwing him momentarily off his game.

"Actually, I'm after a little something for a sweet tooth, myself," she finished before he could get his words together. She rounded the corner, dragging the tips of her left hand around the marble topped island as she went.

"You've come to the right place. I've got some chocolate and pomegranates here. A little sweet, a little tart," he said, turning back toward the counter to hide the growing length in his shorts. She stopped right behind him, the warmth of her presence soaking the cool air around him and flooding his nerves with electricity.

"Somehow, you're always in the right place," she said, sneaking her hands up his shirt and around to thread her fingers in the soft trail of hair at the bottom of his belly. His skin tightened on contact, breath quickening disobediently in response to her touch. She moved her hands to his waist, tightening her grip and coaxing him to turn to face her.

"I try to be," he uttered, picking a plump, red pomegranate from the bowl on the counter. "How about that snack?" he finally offered, hoping to divert her attention from how embarrassingly hard he had become. She was pressed to him from the waist down, his bare feet astride her own. She nodded in approval but refused to move or release her pressure on him. Red dug his fingers into the rind of the fruit and pulled until he held a half in each hand. She took the one half from him and tossed it in the bowl with the others.

"You keep a bowl of these in each of your safe houses. Is there a story there?" she wondered aloud. A smile spread across his lips and a fire bloomed in her belly.

"I suppose I get a little carried away with my affinity for Hades and Persephone. Pomegranates are as sweet as forbidden love," he answered her, holding up the half piece of the fruit between them, waiting to see what she'd do next.

"Bite it," she ordered, her eyes wide and intently locked with his; her lips parted with exhalations of pure heat.

 _Oh Lizzie_ , was all he could think as he stood there dumbly. Obediently, he took the fruit into his mouth, carefully avoiding the toughened outer skin. She ground her hips into his as she watched his skillful mouth work the ripe flesh and its seeds. He moaned and a tiny trickle of scarlet juice escaped the corner of his mouth, ran down his chin and slowly dripped on to his stark white shirt.

"Allow me," she whispered, running her hands up under the shirt, easing it off over his head and tossing it to the floor.

He took another bite of fruit, crushing the mouthful of arils as they gave up their exotic juice then covered Lizzie's open mouth with his. She tasted of wild strawberries and as she opened to him, the heady combination of tart pomegranate mingled with her sweet essence sent him spiraling, down, lost and losing control fast. Even with her eyes closed, though, she was reading every signal he gave: rapid heart rate, irregular breathing, groaning through their joined lips under the agonizingly pleasurable work of her hands on him.

She broke the kiss, pushing her flattened palms against his chest and pulling back just far enough to cast a demure look up at him through her eyelashes. She wasn't fooling anyone, let alone Red. He'd learned more about her in the last few moments than in the last three years. The fast rise and fall of her chest told him all he needed to know. He smiled at her crookedly long enough to watch her dip her head down to lap at the sticky juice on his chest. No more false restraint, then. Too long he had waited to stop now.

He pushed her sleep shorts off her waist and lifted her up to the countertop. He pulled and tugged her tank off and her perfectly taut breasts bobbed free. Red shamelessly took in the sight before him, Lizzie's pure white skin and features highlighted in the dim light.

"You're perfect," he murmured, bowing to cup her breast, pulling the taut nipple into his mouth. Lizzie's hands came alive on his skin, running her fingers from the nape of his neck down to the waist of his shorts, toying with the waistband before pushing them to the floor with the other discarded garments. He sank to his knees and settled his mouth over her, bathing her with his tongue. She wanted to watch, really she did, but the pleasure spiraled through her from the place where the heat and pressure pooled, spreading to her fingers and toes. She threw back her head, eyes closed, lost in it, lost in him. She was closer than she realized and, as she guided him to where she needed him the most, he sucked hard, and it was all she needed to go over the edge. He didn't stop, though. He tasted every last drop, lapping and swiping his tongue in long strokes across her.

Still panting and not yet calmed from her high, she pulled him up to meet her lips, kissing him with more fire, more fury this time. Grabbing his hips and edging forward on the counter, she pulled him close, lining him up just so before pulling him inside her. For a moment, everything seemed to stop. Sigh after sigh floated passed his ear as she stretched around his length. Until he began to move again. The foreign sounds coming from Lizzie would have concerned him, had he not felt the tips of her fingernails start to dig into the firm, round flesh of his ass. She grabbed and groaned and pulled and pushed him hard, wrapping her legs around him then, locking her ankles tightly and increasing the friction.

They kissed again, hard and frantic and his hands fisted in her hair to direct her this way and that, giving him the best access to tease and taste. Lizzie released her hands from his neck and started to pull away. Red's eyes flew open, suddenly worried he had taken things too far; but then, she glanced behind herself and, with the help of his strong arm, lay herself flat across the counter.

"Lizzie…my God," he ground out through a tightly clenched jaw. She was even closer now, her heels pulled up to the edge of the counter, changing his angle yet again. He would never last long this way. Lizzie seemed to prefer this position, too, but; for his part, a dizzying rush of pleasure threatened to pull him under, the kind of pleasure so hard and so good that he had spent years hoping for but had forgotten to prepare himself for how it would actually feel. His thumb placed just so and rocking back and forth over her clit threw her quickly into a second dizzying orgasm with Red following closely behind in jerky, erratic spurts.

The two collapsed on the floor, propped up against the cabinets. He ran his hands up and down her arms, soothing her, bringing her down. Spent, her head rolled to the side, her cheek resting against his tight, sweaty chest. They cared not about collecting themselves; their night clothes still strewn about, strands of her hair clinging to his dewy, heaving chest. The gentle rock of the ship lulled the two to sleep where they sat, alone, but not isolated and more than ever, stronger together.


End file.
